WARREN, Ohio – Elvis Costello has been weighing the impact and legacy of his early-career music.

The Rock Hall of Famer mounted a summer tour with his band, The Imposters, plus guitarist Charlie Sexton, in a specialized show titled “Radio Soul! The Early Songs of Elvis Costello.”

The tour will come to Packard Music Hall on Sept. 15. Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster.com and the Packard box office.

The “Radio Soul” tour set list focuses on the early part of Costello’s career – 1976 to 1986 – and includes songs ranging from the albums “My Aim Is True” to “Blood & Chocolate.”

This nine-year segment delivered some of Costello’s most renowned songs – from “Watching the Detectives” to “I Want You.”

The concert also includes some later songs, including “Alison,” “Man Out of Time” and “Brilliant Mistake.”

The tour takes its name from an early version of one of his earliest hits.

“For any songwriter, it has to be a compliment if people want to hear songs written up to 50 years ago,” Costello said in a news release announcing the tour. “Among them is ‘Radio Soul,’ the first draft of what eventually became the 1975 song ‘Radio Radio.’”

The Imposters, Costello’s backing band since 2002, includes original members Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas, with Davey Faragher and  Sexton on guitar.

Costello said the band adds to the authenticity.

“Don’t forget this show is performed by Elvis Costello and the Imposters, an ensemble which includes three people who first recorded this music and two more who bring something entirely new,” Costello added.

Though the tour takes a historical approach, Costello said he is not interested in merely reliving the past. He’s looking to give the songs a proper recognition before he moves forward.

“I want to bring these songs into the present day, one more time, in the event they are ever pushed out of the way by the next number that I write,” he said. 

Box Set

Costello’s look into his past will continue with the Oct. 4 release of “My Aim Is True (49th Anniversary Edition),” a five-disc boxed set that will include 104 tracks. Half of the songs will be previously unreleased recordings that include demos from 1975 and live cuts. 

The package will reflect “the curious nature and the compression of events between 1976 and the middle of 1978,” the artist told Mojo magazine in an interview earlier this year.

A 72-page essay written by Costello, plus rare photos and handwritten lyrics, will be included.

Disc 1 will be a remastered release of his 1977 debut album, “My Aim Is True.”

Disc 2 will feature 17 acoustic songs recorded in 1975 and 1976, 10 of which have never been published before.

“You will find a version of ‘Radio Soul’ here,” Costello told the magazine. “But there are eight or nine of these songs that contain themes, individual lines, lyric couplets or entire verses and choruses, that are found on ‘Armed Forces,’ ‘Get Happy!’ or ‘Trust,’ set to entirely different music. It’s a kind of editing in reverse, and its why this record is called ‘The Blue Print.’”

Disc 3 will include demos and outtakes. 

Disc 4 will focus on the period between the summers of 1977 and 1978 when Costello and his bandmates remodeled the songs of the debut album.

The fifth disc will be a 2007 live performance with the band Clover. Costello recorded his debut album with members of that California band, and the concert was the only time Clover performed the songs live for an audience.

Pictured at top: Elvis Costello. (Photo by Ray Di Pietro)